What You Need to Know About Your Drains | Tips from Your San Antonio, TX Drain Cleaning Experts
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As big of a job as the drains in your home are responsible for, most people don’t pay a lot of mind to their drains care and maintenance. As a matter of fact, a lot of drain cleaning service calls could be avoided if people knew how to treat their drains a little better. However, it can be tough to figure out what you should and shouldn’t put down your drains to keep it from getting clogged. Lucky for you, bluefrog Plumbing + Drain of San Antonio, TX, is here to help with everything you need to know about your drains.
Drain Cleaners
One of the first things you should know about your drains is that some of the most popular drain cleaning solutions on the market are actually highly recommended against by most plumbers.
Draino, one of if not the most popular drain cleaner on the market, is among the drain cleaners you shouldn’t use in your home. Draino uses harsh chemicals to break down the clogs in your drains, which are both ineffective and dangerous. Using drain cleaning solutions like Draino for a long time can actually cause a lot of damage to your pipes.
If you’re looking for the best way to clean your drain, look into an enzyme-based drain cleaner. These drain cleaners are made with enzymes that eat away at the organic matter that’s clogging up your drain. Enzyme-based cleaners are a very effective way to get clogs out of your drains, and you can use them regularly to help keep drains clean since they aren’t made with harsh chemicals. If you’ve been using a chemical-based drain cleaning solution, try switching to one of the enzyme-based cleaners to reduce wear on your pipes.
The Kitchen
While it may not be the most common spot for clogs to occur, the kitchen sink is one of the most commonly abused drains in most homes. Even if you’ve got a garbage disposal in your kitchen sink, chances are you’re still doing things that put you at risk for clogs.
Garbage disposals aren’t designed to take on tons of food and prevent clogs in your drain 100% of the time. Instead, you should think of your garbage disposal as the last line of defense. If you do get some food in the sink, the garbage disposal can help break it down some before it reaches the drain.
As a general rule, you should try to throw as little food as possible down your garbage disposal. The worst foods to put down your garbage disposal include things like celery, bones, coffee grounds, pasta and grease. These foods all have textures that can cause big problems in terms of clogging your drains, especially when it comes to grease and oil. While grease may seem like a fine thing to pour down your drain because of its consistency, it will eventually re-solidify and cause a big clog down the line.
The Bathroom
While the kitchen in your home may be at risk for clogs, it’s nothing compared to the fixtures in your bathroom. One of the easiest ways to clog a drain is to fill it up with a combination of hair and soap, and that’s exactly what most people do in the bathroom.
The hardest place to prevent clogs in the bathroom is the shower. If you want to avoid calling professional drain cleaning services, you need to make sure you’re minimizing the amount of hair and soap scum that gets in your drain. The easiest way to do this is to buy a grate that goes over your shower drain and catches hair before it becomes a problem. Even if your shower drain does eventually get clogged, it will be easier for a drain cleaning service to deal with.
The bathroom sink is a big problem too, particularly because most people shave in the sink. The truth of the matter is, shaving in the sink is one of the quickest ways to cause a drain clog in your bathroom sink. Just like the shower, you can buy drain grates that catch some of that hair before it gets in the drain and builds up, but you may already have a stopper in place. If you do have a stopper, you should have a professional take it out and clean it every once in a while.
A lot of the drain cleaning calls we get have to do with toilets because they can clog so easily. The truth is, toilet paper is about the only thing you should be flushing down your toilet. Even the wipes that are marketed as flushable will leave you spending money on a drain cleaning service if you use them for a while.
Other Clogs
If you’ve got a clog in your home and you’re not quite sure what’s causing it, there’s a chance you have a problem with your sewer line. Your drain system runs to one main sewer line that runs through your yard, which means there are times when tree roots grow through a drain pipe and cause an obstruction. If drain cleaners and snakes don’t seem to be making your pipes drain any faster, have a drain cleaning service scope out your main drain pipe to make sure there aren’t any roots in it.
Professional Help
When you’re dealing with the drainage system for an entire San Antonio, TX, home, it’s best to leave things to the professionals. The hard part is finding a drain cleaning service you can count on to get the job done right without charging you an arm and a leg.
If you need a drain unclogged in a hurry, you can count on the folks at bluefrog Plumbing + Drain of San Antonio, TX. We’ll diagnose your clogged drain and fix it so you can get back to living a normal life. To find out more or schedule an appointment, call us at (210) 876-1629.
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